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This invention relates to planting and excavating transplanter.
A variety of motor driven mechanisms have been developed for excavating trees and forming root balls for transplanting. In general the mechanisms are complex with multiple spades, hydraulics rams, controls, elaborate articulating frames, telescopic scoops, geometric linkages and dedicated hardware. This complexity is expensive and redundant with features usually found on equipment already. Simpler mechanisms lack some crucial features that rendered them too clumsy to be useful.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,133,268 Delisle, discloses a tree scooper operated by a combined rotating and backsliding action using an H-mount with internally mounted hydraulic cylinders and a power slider for linear motion which shapes a root ball. This mechanism is designed for harvesting not planting or transporting.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,979,321 Hall, discloses an excavator for excavating a tree and forming a root ball consisting of telescopic segments to form a bowl-shaped scoop and an elaborate supporting structures. The mechanism is; complex; costly and subject to damage resulting from obstacles in the segments.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,977,099 Stewart, uses a pair of parallelogram linkages to rotate a pair of spherical blades for forming a root ball and removing the plant. The mechanism is; costly and subject to damage resulting from contact with the soil.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,045,891 Grew, discloses a structure in which the three blades are provided which serve to dig into the soil at intervals around the root ball. The mechanism is costly and lacks restraint while transporting.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,889,402 discloses an excavator in which two blades are mounted to move toward one another from opposite sides of the plant in order to form the root ball during the excavation operation. The mechanism is costly.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,936,960 discloses a structure in which a plurality of spades are arranged to be driven into the soil so as to converge below the plant in order to form a root ball. The mechanism is costly.
The present invention is a tree transplanter designed to replace the bucket of a loader-motor vehicle, is simple in design, relatively inexpensive, and overcomes the drawbacks and disadvantages of prior art of tree transplanter design. The tree transplanter comprises a fixture mounted and anchored to the loader""s arms and nestled within a single rotating scoop. When harvesting a tree, the scoop rotates under the root ball while the fixture stops the root ball from rotating, in effect pushing the root ball into the scoop. When transporting a tree, the root ball is securely surrounded by the platform and scoop. When planting, the scoop rotates from under the root ball while the fixture stops the root ball from rotating, in effect pushing the root ball out of the scoop.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a relatively inexpensive transplanter design that is suitable for use with a loader-motor vehicle and is particularly adapted to all operations involved in tree transplanting.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a tree transplanter that is designed to dig a bowl-shaped hole at the planting site, securely transport the resulting soil ball to the donor site, dig up the tree being transplanted, securely transport the tree to the planting site and plant the tree in the previously dug hole. If multiple trees are being transplanted, the resulting soil balls from the planting site can be placed in the holes left from prior donor sites.
Other objects and advantages of the present invention will become apparent and obvious from a study of the following description and the accompanying drawings which are merely illustrative of such invention.